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Barbara Lindsey

Fostering Cross-Cultural Understanding Through E-Learning: Russian-American Forum Case-... - 0 views

online-journals.org/...1290

crosscultural learning understanding technology

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10
     
    This is an abstract (full article available at end of abstract as pdf) published in the open access Journal: International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning.
Barbara Lindsey

Do You Speak "Academia"? » Edurati Review - 0 views

eduratireview.com/...do-you-speak-academia

academia writing journals

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • the opening main clause, “Education is an all-encompassing institution,” makes little sense, and the rest of the sentence fails to clarify its meaning. The use of “each and every” is redundant; if each continent and culture, then, by default, it is every continent and culture. After the semicolon, good verbs become weak adjectives: functional and organizational. The entire paragraph could be restructured as an easily understood sentence: In every society, schools organize, function, and operate similarly.
  • Why pick on paragraphs pulled from their contexts? If you read (or try to read) educational journals, you’ll find that these examples are not isolated. They illustrate the “academic style” characterizing such periodicals. These periodicals, their supporters argue, provide the link between research and classroom practice. But the poor communication—the academic writing—requires the reader to add steps to the usually efficient cognition of comprehension. The reader is forced to pause and ask, “What does that mean in plain English?” It’s not that different from reading text in a second language, one in which the reader may be knowledgeable but not proficient.
  • This same gap often exists between students and their textbooks.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • This issue is so prevalent that some experts recommend we teach students “academic language.”
  • This additional distance between the writer and reader decreases the likelihood that the journals will actually be read. And if the journals are not read by teachers, the research will be slow to influence educational practice, if it does at all.
  • We are spending time, effort, and sometimes money on research doomed to remain idle because it’s not communicated well. The poor writing prevents worthwhile application.
  • If understanding depends on translating the language, students who struggle with this prerequisite may lack the motivation or inertia to think beyond, or even through, the interpretation. We’re making understanding more difficult—a seeming antithesis to our role as educators.
  • Why can’t “academic” journals and textbooks utilize common principles of good writing. Why do we insist on communication complexity when our goals would be better served by simple clarity?
  • Status? Are we insisting on “academic writing” because it separates journals from the “rags” intended for the masses or textbooks from the unlearned? If so, our goal must be to maintain some perceived elite readership—a readership probably not teaching or sitting in our classrooms.
  • Do we think that our research and subject matter is complicated, therefore our communicating should also be complex? This is so contrary to logic and sound teaching that it’s an oxymoron.
  • A complex topic requires simple writing, especially when the reader likely lacks the author’s background knowledge and experience. This is almost always the case when a researcher seeks to address individuals who were not part of the research team or involved in similar research themselves, or when experts in a field seek to articulate concepts for students.
  • Medina presents ideas simply and in ways known to foster learning. As the brain engages in elaboration, it overlays new data with known experiences, making connections that help construct understanding. Medina relates a new, complex topic to a familiar childhood activity—origami (even though he is not writing for children). By giving us a reference point for understanding DNA, he equips us with the tools needed to construct understanding. Isn’t this what we should be striving for, both in our textbooks and our journals?
Barbara Lindsey

Old and New | Jason T Bedell - 0 views

jasontbedell.com/old-and-new

professional development pd

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10
     
    Jason Bedell talks about professional development 1.0 and 2.0
Barbara Lindsey

Who twitters where? // twittermap.tv - 0 views

twittermap.tv

twitter map

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10
     
    Thinking this could be used real-time in class to see what people are twittering about in L1 versus L2, for example.
Barbara Lindsey

A Look to the Future of Edutopia | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/future-of-edutopia

edutopia openaccess opencontent free

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10 - Cached
  • All our tools and resources – including the popular Edutopia webinar series – will be free and universally accessible, thanks to support from foundations, advertisers and donors.
  • Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10
     
    Edutopia announces it will put all its resources completely online and freely available.
Barbara Lindsey

Microsoft, Google eye Arabic web growth potential | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE63N0V120100424

google microsoft Arabic content

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10 - Cached
  • "One of our biggest missions is to enable Arabic users to find the right tools to enrich Arabic content," Ghonim said. "It would be great to see more e-commerce in the region, more publishers, more news sites. We are committed to help them."
  • Ghonim said Arabic speakers have historically engaged in poorly organized and difficult to archive forums, citing a message board used by 400,000 teachers in Saudi Arabia.Both Google and Microsoft place Arabic in their top ten languages in need of prioritized attention.
  • "The next few million Egyptian internet users will be people who don't really speak English," Ghonim said.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • "Think of the guy running a very small one-stop shop in (Nile delta industrial city) Mahalla," Ghonim said. "You should facilitate for him a complete experience in Arabic, from the way he registers his domain to finding a hosting company to communicating to his customers."
  • Mundie said the Arab world was well-placed to skip PC-dominated use and go straight to mobile internet.
Barbara Lindsey

PollEverywhere grappling with Monetization and Free Educator Plans « Moving a... - 0 views

www.speedofcreativity.org/...zation-and-free-educator-plans

free freemium web2.0 fryer

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 06 Sep 10 - Cached
  • the development of pricing schedules and "free" access options for phenomenal web 2.0 services for education and learning.
  • PollEverywhere is grappling with similar monetization issues as VoiceThread has.
  • My digital curriculum wiki is one I'm going to be updating and moving later this spring, and hopefully sharing often at educational conference events and in-district PD sessions
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • A high quality education has never been free and without cost. We SHOULD utilize and leverage free content and tools when it makes sense and those resources tangibly advance our learning goals. We also must remember and should discuss, however, the cases where digital content and capabilities are WORTH paying for.
Barbara Lindsey

Blog Day - 0 views

www.blogday.org

community blog international global

shared by Barbara Lindsey on 05 Sep 10 - Cached
  • BlogDay posting instructions: Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2010 Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and Add the BlogDay tag using this link: http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2010 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org
  • Barbara Lindsey on 05 Sep 10
     
    International blog day
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